Alumni Engagement Goals
In September 2017, the Alumni Association presented Inspiring our Alumni. Supporting our University. Bettering our World: A Strategic Plan for Engaging Santa Clara Alumni. In addition to the three big ideas and 11 key priorities, we committed to two goals to measure our success:
Commitment:
- The Alumni Association will, by 2022*:
- Uniquely engage 35% of our contactable alumni (a 35% increase in the number of alumni currently engaged)
- Drive 1 million points of alumni engagement
Expected Outcome:
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Achieving our engagement goals will assist the University in reaching the Comprehensive Campaign goals of $1 billion raised and 28% undergraduate alumni participation in giving (an 8% increase in alumni participation and 51% increase in the number of donors), all while growing Santa Clara's national reputation and visibility.
*We extended our measurement period to the end of June 2023 because of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Alumni Engagement Data Defined
All living alumni - undergraduate, graduate, and dual-degree alumni are included in our data.
Alumni Leadership
Definition: Serve on a University Board
Examples: SCU Regents, SCU Alumni Board of Directors, SCU Business Advisory Board, Catala Club Members, Community Engagement Leaders, Grand Reunion Committee Member
Volunteer
Definition: Volunteer at an alumni event or industry group, event speakers, event hosts
Examples: Volunteer at an alumni event or industry group; serve as event speakers or event hosts
Engage/ Connect
Definition: Digital engagement (on the Alumni Association’s social media channels only) or participation in an Alumni Association program
Examples: Participated in an alumni survey, total unique visitors to the Alumni Association website, social media engagement, married in Mission Church, Bronco Business Registry, Alumni Book Club Member, Alumni Award Recipients
Attend
Definition: Attend a University or Alumni Association event
Examples: Alumni relations hosted event (on- or off-campus) attendees, school and center event attendance, Athletic event attendees
Give
Definition: Total number of alumni who gave a gift in a fiscal year
Example: Alumni who donated
In Fiscal Year (FY) 23, we measured 148 different types of alumni engagements
We improved our data by increasing the number of different engagements we track by 33%, from FY18 (111) to FY23 (148)
To account for non-alumni followers on our social channels, points of engagement are weighted (or discounted) by 15% to remove non-alumni. This number was determined by analyzing our Facebook and Twitter followers in 2019, where we discovered that 85% of our followers are alumni.
Alumni Points of Engagement
GOAL: Drive 1 million points of alumni engagement
This goal will demonstrate the depth and breadth of Alumni Relations engagement efforts across the campus.
- Every “point of engagement” will be counted as 1 point
- Example: If an alumnus attends an event, participates in the Alumni Book Club, and serves on the Alumni Board of Directors, that would count as 3 points of engagement for that year
Unique Alumni Engagement
GOAL: Uniquely engage 35% of our contactable alumni
This goal will demonstrate the ability to engage NEW alumni and our ability to offer a wide array of programs, events, and activities for our diverse alumni community.
- The unique count of alumni who engaged that year at least once is divided by ALL contactable alumni; This gives us the percentage of “uniquely engaged alumni”
- The “unique” number means that each alumnus/a is only counted once, even if they engaged with us multiple ways in that given year.
- Calculations are made annually
- Example: If an alumnus attends an event, participates in the Alumni Book Club, and serves on the Alumni Board of Directors, they would only count as 1 unique person engaged that year
- “Contactable” is defined as alumni who have a valid email or address AND are not marked “do not contact” in our customer relationship management (CRM) database, CLARA
- Contacts who only have a valid phone number are excluded from this calculation since we do not conduct any phone-only marketing
- Unique Alumni Engagement Metric Denominator – All living, contactable alumni (See definition above).
- The denominator does NOT include the current student class year. E.g., for the 2022-23 academic year, the denominator does not include the class of 2023, since they were students (not alumni) during that school year
The denominator increases each year:
- A new class graduates each year and class sizes are increasing (fall 2022: 6,115 undergrads, 3,063 graduates)
- Alumni Relations, PMA, Advancement Services, and other campus partners are conducting campaigns to improve contact info, resulting in more contactable alumni
*See the "Contactable Alumni by Year" section for data on how our alumni population has changed from FY18 - FY23.
Total Number of Contactable Alumni
Contactable Alumni, As a Percentage of our Alumni Base
How Participation Influences Giving
We know from our Alumni Attitude Survey (conducted in March 2023) that alumni who feel part of the community give at a rate of 3-4 times the University average. The following bar graph shows the many ways alumni engage with the University (y-axis) compared to their giving rate (X-axis).
